Prominent Authors, Reflecting on SCOTUSPut aside for the moment the usual celebratory dinner and the speeches by legal luminaries. When the American Civil Liberties Union marks its 100th birthday in 2020, some of the country's most respected fiction and nonfiction authors will offer in a published anthology their takes on U.S. Supreme Court decisions and other court cases with which the organization has been involved during the last century.
The project began shortly after the election of President Donald Trump when authors
Michael Chabon and his wife
Ayelet Waldman, a lawyer, contacted the ACLU asking how they might volunteer, according to the ACLU's
Stacy Sullivan.
Waldman had gone to law school with former President Barack Obama and the ACLU's
James Esseks. "At that time, we were getting tons of people offering to volunteer," Sullivan said. "But you don't often get the likes of Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman."
The two authors had recently done an anthology with their writer friends about the occupation of West Gaza for the benefit of a group in Israel called Breaking the Silence. Sullivan suggested something similar on the ACLU's cases to mark the centennial.
Within two weeks, Sullivan said, she and others had put together a spreadsheet of about 100 cases from which the writers could pick. "I think we had 98 before the Supreme Court and we put in a couple of important state and local cases," she said.
There is no oversight by the ACLU of what the writers decide to write, according to Sullivan. "I really wanted these authors to look at the cases and write what they wanted to write," she said. "I don’t care if its poetry. They can look at it from a cultural perspective rather than a legal perspective and that’s great. How it affects people is what really matters."
➤➤ Among the volunteer writers,
Salman Rushdie has chosen United States v. New York Times, the Pentagon Papers challenge.
Lauren Groff will write about the landmark abortion ruling, Roe v. Wade.
Meg Wolitzer has taken Griswold v. Connecticut and
Jesmyn Ward will write on Chicago v. Morales. Other writers include
Jennifer Egan,
Colson Whitehead,
Hanya Yanagihara,
Ann Patchett,
Marlon James and
Louise Erdrich.
➤➤ Waldman, with Chabon, will edit the stories and essays. The concept, she said, "moves beyond the whole idea of the Supreme Court and becomes a way to understand the history of the civil rights movement and the conception of what it means to be a citizen. I think this could be a phenomenal teaching tool for high schools and colleges."
Waldman said she and Chabon had no difficulty finding a publisher for the anthology. "Our agent took it out and Simon & Schuster stepped forward right away," she said. The editors and literary agency are donating their advance and any proceeds connected to the book to the ACLU. The contributing writers are forgoing payment.
The anthology is expected to be published in early January 2020.
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